So we played this last night at the pub. There were...complications...with the space, and with communications prior to the start of game night, which lead to us fudging things a bit. Which is to say that we took an hour and a half to set up, played four rounds in two hours, and called it without officially finishing. I ran the 600 points of defending/fleeing forces, facing off against four lists of 200 points each - two of which were (mostly) legal per the rules of the scenario, and two of which were just adaptations of standard lists.

It was an odd experience, even for a first attempt at a new scenario in the new Epic. I managed to pull off the win with five victory points, losing only three victory points, and we left three more victory points on the table. The odd part was how rough it felt to be facing the coordinated, concentrated efforts of four other players. I had a clear plan of engagement, which mostly worked - hence the win. And I might have won even more soundly had I followed my plan of engagement but chosen a slightly different deployment. But it felt...unpleasant, being the focus of all that fire. Because it was a LOT of fire coming in.

There were players on the other side who were a little salty about how the game went down - due to my plan of engagement, they basically didn't get to play but instead were stuck trying to catch up to the fight as I ran the **** away from half of the forces facing me. And I get that. But trying to face down that much heat? No way. So there's a design flaw.

We discussed afterwards breaking it up so that there would be two players fleeing, facing off against however many attacking players, which would probably(?) address several of these issues. But overall, this scenario left such a bad taste in my mouth that I think I'm going to shelve scenario play for a little while. I mean, I've had nothing but scenario play for weeks now; and while it is a nice change, I think I need to be reminded of why I needed the change. That, and the set-up time is daunting for a fairly time-restricted mid-week beer-wing session. Maybe for a weekend, full day session?

For reference, I was running a FAT CR-90, a wing of ProTorp named X-Wings, two U-Wings, and two Z-95's -- against a Vader Wing, an X-Wing Wing with GR-75 support, a Raider, and Dash with A-Wing escorts. I lost the CR-90 and both U-Wings, killed two TIEs and an A-Wing, and hurt the three X-Wings and Vader. I never engaged the Raider or Dash, and barely touched the GR-75. In spite of running straight at the Vader Wing and the GR-75/X-Wings.

But seriously. Epic burn-out. Who would have suspected that that could be a thing?

I've mostly done high point 'casual' matches and a couple runs of Atmospheric Entry. I'd love to do some of the other scenarios, but so far that's the only one others have wanted to play.

3 hours ago, Kleeg005 said:

For reference, I was running a FAT CR-90, a wing of ProTorp named X-Wings, two U-Wings, and two Z-95's -- against a Vader Wing, an X-Wing Wing with GR-75 support, a Raider, and Dash with A-Wing escorts. I lost the CR-90 and both U-Wings, killed two TIEs and an A-Wing, and hurt the three X-Wings and Vader. I never engaged the Raider or Dash, and barely touched the GR-75. In spite of running straight at the Vader Wing and the GR-75/X-Wings.

That explains a lot. The scenario is a lot of fun when the attackers stick to just one wing each. It does take extra time for the defender to plan all those dials though, while each other player has only one dial. But the wings can generally catch up with the enemy force better than huge ships can.

Are you the only one with the Epic Battles Expansion? In other words, are the other players as invested as you? I find my games go a lot better when others are also pouring over Epic rules and lists in their spare time.

Sorry if I sound like I'm poking holes in your game. It's just that I found this one too be a lot of fun.

4 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

That explains a lot. The scenario is a lot of fun when the attackers stick to just one wing each. It does take extra time for the defender to plan all those dials though, while each other player has only one dial. But the wings can generally catch up with the enemy force better than huge ships can.

Are you the only one with the Epic Battles Expansion? In other words, are the other players as invested as you? I find my games go a lot better when others are also pouring over Epic rules and lists in their spare time.

Sorry if I sound like I'm poking holes in your game. It's just that I found this one too be a lot of fun.

We have one other guy with the Epic and Huge ship materials, and one who just picked up the Huge ship conversion kit a couple days ago. And I am generally the one to try to herd all these cats. So, yeah, *that* gets old fast. But they ALL do want to play the new stuff. The guy running the Raider, for example, only had a 300 point and a 500 point list made up and didn't want to make any significant changes to any of his built lists - so he dropped a single upgrade off his Raider and said "Good enough;" which, obviously, it wasn't. They're all happy to play, and are happy to have something new to look at, but they aren't really putting any effort into it. It is also the case that I've had several games now where, due to scenario choice and collection availability, it's been just me against multiple opponents - which is tactically exhausting, right?

I do appreciate the thoughts and the commentary - that's one of the main reasons I post anything rather than just stewing on it all. And there will a pretty significant break in X-Wing play overall due to the holidays, too. Maybe we'll give it another shot sometime - and I won't be the monkey in the middle!

When I played this one last time my 10-yo son was the monkey in the middle. Which made me nervous, but he REALLY wanted to put the C-ROC (yo yo) on the table, so I let him. When it got destroyed (which was obviously going to happen) he was pretty distraught, but Moralo Eval escaped with his points, and the wing of 3 Z-95s were poised to make a getaway, so it was actually a very close game. Having the 10-yo with 8 dials compared to everyone else's one dial was not the best choice, and it took us nearly 2 hours to play 3 rounds. I guess the only way to get faster is to practice. Also he only had to face 3 wings, so that left one area wide open to escape into, which made things easier for him.